pixies
by reveileb maerdyad
Summary: it's her birthday and he's nowhere to be found. a bit introspective. chasing fireflies. squallrinoa, one shot.


Sort of AU, in that it happens sometime after the game but the feelings between Squall and Rinoa remain unclear. 

For a favorite reviewer, Skye Eiden, for being more than a _kabayan_, but also an online pal. You _are_ a Squall/Rinoa fan, right? ^_^;

**Disclaimer: **Squaresoft owns Final Fantasy viii. 

**pixies**

It was at that whimsical moment between orange dusk and twilight, where one gets the feeling of eternity being stretched languorously like some cosmic elastic band, that Rinoa Heartilly found herself squinting at the far-off space where grassland met the sky. If the intensity of her gaze had had any effect on the fast darkening landscape before her, the whole field would have been a blazing furnace long ago; but as it was, everything remained unchanged, save for the constant billowing of grass swaying to a breeze that was practically nonexistent where she sat. 

Her hands sought the folds of her white dress, unconsciously easing creases and wrinkles that she suspected were really the own doing of her ceaseless ministrations. She sighed and forced her hands away, encircling them instead on the shaggy brown fur of her friend. 

"What do you think, boy?" she asked Angelo in a curious voice, at odds with the mix of worry and frustration that was eating at her then. "He isn't going to show up, is he?" 

As if to comfort his mistress, the dog sniffed Rinoa's hair and barked loudly, trying to buoy her spirits. Smiling sadly, she patted Angelo's head and leaned on him as she resumed her study of the horizon. Nothing at all had changed. Hope, like a rosebud in autumn, lost its petals within her as the light slowly diminished on all sides, seeming the first few snowdrops of winter; silent, unnerving, inevitable. 

Fingers tightening, she talked, softly, for fear of missing the sound of absent footfalls. "I should have known he wouldn't show up. More than likely he's forgotten." Her eyes flashed with the dying sun, then just as quickly died down. "It hurts me... but I guess it's better than actually knowing that he did remember but still refused to come." 

Angelo made a sympathetic sound beside her as she let her thoughts drift on. Well, at least she still had Angelo for her birthday. So what if that uncaring grouch forgot to at least show him her face this morning? So what if she was practically boiling with worry over where he was? She wasn't even sure if he got to read the message she left at his bedside table yesterday, asking him to meet her here so they could have a private moment together. All she knew was that his absence at the birthday bash the gang had set up for her earlier had made her squirm inside, shadowing her joy with anxiety and making her pretend that she was happy for their sake. She hadn't even so much as glimpsed the shadow of his frown the whole day. 

Where _was_ that fool man?

Groaning to herself, she carefully took the bag of unopened gifts she had brought with her, having already predicted that she would have a lot of free time on her hands. Gingerly, she fingered the smooth plastic of Esthar's shopping center, debating whether she should open it now or hold on to the thought of Squall suddenly appearing and sharing them with her. 

_Perhaps he'd even have a gift for me!_ As soon as the thought popped into her mind, she shook her head and grimaced. Squall appearing without being led by a hand on his ear would have already been enough to shock even stony Fujin, but giving her gifts? _That_ simply boggled the mind and...now, she had to admit, was also very, very sweet. Zell might as well start a craving for sandwiches, though, for all the likeliness that Squall would come bearing her a birthday present.  It would probably be better if she expected nothing – that way, she would not be so disappointed _if_ he even bothered to show up. 

_Well_, she huffed, _Squall can come or not as far as I'm concerned_. She was opening her presents _now._ A breath to steady her nerves, and she opened the bag with a snap.

What fell out was a stunning yellow package of lace and ruffles designed with chocobo prints, which tumbled noisily before she managed to scoop it up. Immediately, the image of a smiling Selphie danced into her mind as she studied the baby chocobo prints with the caption "Kweh!" sprawled beside each in rainbow hues. 

The package was shaped rather oddly, was quite long and had no definite sides to it to determine a shape. Curiosity prompted her to open it as quickly as she dared, careful not to tear anything – she had always had this fetish for gift wrappers, which she considered almost as touching as the gifts themselves – and gasped with surprise and pleasure at what she saw.

There, nestled between thin, colorful layers of paper, was a miniature model train. Not just any model train, but the exact copy of the decoy they had ridden while attempting to capture President Deling. The rush of memories it gave her overwhelmed, filling her with sudden warmth. Those included some of her earliest memories of Squall – the shock of finding out that he was even more of a recluse than she first thought he was; the intriguing personality he radiated that made her study him even more; the melting admiration for a leader, a soldier, and a begrudging friend from someone who was intent on being a full rebel for the first time in her life. So caught up was she that she almost didn't see the little card set beside the train. When she finally did, she took it and read the short scrawled word written by her friend's energetic hand.

_Booyaka! _

Her eyes trailed off into the little train in front of her. Were her eyes deceiving her, or was that little waving figure a miniature replica of Watts? 

She looked away quickly, her hands covered up Selphie's gift. The sight of her old friend (even as a toy) gave her a unexpected pang. It hurt to think of the old times, without looking back on all the people who had made her who she was right now; the things she had sought to accomplish as a naive bright-eyed girl, thinking only of herself and consequently putting the lives of the people she cared about on danger. 

Her fingers played with the wrapper, the gift momentarily forgotten, with much the same unconscious fervor she had earlier applied to her dress. It had been a revolution – well, sort of – yes, an organized, if frequently exhausting, effort that had been bent on toppling down the injustice of a leader, a revolution that lit up the embers that had long kindled in Rinoa's young heart; but now, months later, sitting solitary in a field whose verdant greens proclaimed the peace after a war, she wondered whether her heart really had belonged to Timber, or was everything that she had attempted and done during those tumultuous times merely a cover-up for the liberation she had so long dreamed of for herself – away from the gripping hands of a father who could never get over the loss of his beautiful wife? 

"Hyne," she sighed. She was not supposed to be thinking about these things; she was supposed to be enjoying herself with her presents, and try her darnedest and not think about Squall "Whatever" Leonhart! She covered her eyes with her hands and rubbed them a few times, as if somehow, all her worries would go away.

With blurred eyesight she looked around, half expecting to hear the rumbling sound of an incoming train.  She could make out the bounding figure of Angelo chasing fireflies excitedly in the grass. Wait - _fireflies?_ Blinking rapidly, she saw that what had earlier been a golden afternoon was now a deepening gray, with only the last vestiges of magenta and orange straining endlessly with the setting sun. 

There was still no Squall Leonhart. 

Only a foolish girl who wore her heart like ribbons on her sleeve. 

Slowly, and with the sort of steady conviction that shadows grace, she stood up. 

"Aaaaaaghhh!" she shouted, mightily, to the unfriendly smoothness of the staring clouds' facades before her. Her lungs expanded and filled, it seemed the breadth and width of her chest pounded with the exhilaration of gulping in enormous amounts of air, as she shouted again, and again; as every pore in her skin vibrated with the force and frustrations that ate at her being, now being expelled with gusto. The sight before her told of Angelo almost jumping out of his skin, the dancing lights that surrounded him darting off into multiple directions like fairy pixies scattering at the sight of humans. Rinoa stopped, closed her mouth and was still. As if newly risen from sleep, she watched the little pinpoints of yellow swaying to the intricate patterns of a mystic dance, once again framing her dog (who watched her as alertly as a SeeD mercenary would) in their own galaxy of stars. 

How very much she was like Angelo, she then thought idly, dazedly. Trying to catch fireflies in the air; was her own search for her knight's heart as elusive as this? Had she been so caught up in her own delusions of grandeur that she failed to see that as deceptively alluring as capturing his soul was, it would all eventually lead to a fruitless chase in the end?

A sudden burning in her eyes told her she wasn't quite finished, after all. 

"Squall Leonhart! I hope – I hope you fall off whatever chair you're sitting on so hard you'll be sore for months – no, years! to come!" Pausing only to take a quick breath, she went on. 

"I hope you choke on your food, and you'd have a sore throat that I won't have to hear a single 'Whatever' from you for a long, long time!" 

In the distance that separated them, Angelo barked his affirmation. Rinoa smiled, a mirthless yet oddly satisfied twist to her lips; she had not felt this good – this free! since her liberating-Timber days. "I hope you frown so hard that you'll scare Cid away into sending you off into Centra!" Her words echoed off into the clouds above, with Rinoa imagining that her voice was being carried away to the vast and unknown lands that produced countless horizons, carried away by the comfortable wispiness of those great gray heralds of the rain and snow that fell to the world. "I hope you -- !"

Her words were cut off as, with an undignified thud, her body crumpled to the ground. Motionless she sat there, her head bowed low, her hair like silken threads that hung limply to the ground. The green blades by her feet shone defiantly against the last of the orange hues, their surfaces wet and glistening from unexpected afternoon dew. 

"I hope you would just come here already, you stupid, stupid man!" she muttered monotonously, the absent anger in her voice made prominent by the pain flowing unstoppable from her eyes. Disjointed thoughts floated to her mind, blended like silent rainwater that seeped naturally to soil and earth. She found she no longer wanted to be held and treated like a princess, she did not even care so much as to catch falling stars with him anymore. 

An image of her mother filled her senses, unexpectedly plunging her into a passive trip to the past, clearing the cobwebs of memory. While she had been no more than a child and her mother had been alive, she had often been a default guest at the bar where on occasion, she was able to watch Julia Heartilly play for the stalwart soldiers of Galbadia the night before her father, General Caraway, would send them off to some mission to parts unknown. Rinoa remembered looking at her mother during those nights; her mother had always been so beautiful, so full of dignity... and oh how she had envied her! Yet Julia had not been particularly striking, in fact she had been a pale, soft-featured lady who, despite of her beauty, was not the type that would immediately be singled out in a crowd; instead, Julia had been a phoenix who, given the chance, would shine so brightly from the ashes of mediocrity, whose plumage, shifting from passionate flare to incandescent gold, could take your breath away. If you would only notice her. 

However, what had earned her mother the applause that much reverberated throughout the bar was the simple fact that whenever Julia Heartilly played, Julia Heartilly became one with the piano. (Her hair flashing the ebony that flowed so sinuously against the ivory of her skin.) Gone was the quiet, gracious hostess Rinoa had so often witnessed from the back of her mother's skirts, there was only the piano, and the piano was Julia. While playing, she had exuded a quiet confidence that throbbed with the melody of her phoenix song, that transcended the walls and the shadows of the cavernous pub, that Rinoa believed it somehow transcended even time. 

And always, Juila Heartilly's eyes would steal toward an empty seat to the right from where she played. Her gazes never were direct, they were always fleeting, daring but always shying away, moving back from almost touching. Rinoa had often wondered why her mother never once looked at the direction of her father, who always sat at his favorite spot at the back of the room cloaked by the bar's perpetual shadows. 

Sometimes Julia looked at her, too: smiling glances, but different from the smiles of mystery that came with the darting looks at the empty seat. Even while fondly looking at her, her mother's eyes retained that far-off look that spoke of different worlds, of different times, a waltz between the past and the present interwoven in wispy tendrils of a future that could never be. 

It was these far-off looks that Rinoa craved for right now. Looks that did not speak of passion unrestrained and all-consuming; but love, patient, enduring, quietly and softly held by the assurance of forever.

_Squall..._

Mechanically, with her mouth set in determination, she gathered her things about her, careful not to damage her gifts. She got up to her feet and proceeded to make her way back to the Garden, back to the day-long festivities that awaited her. With every step she took, the ground behind her remained dark even after her shadow had moved on; night was falling, assuming its place as unobtrusively and as naturally as the daylight that preceded it. 

She never looked back.

------------------------------------

    Seeing his mistress walk off, Angelo raised his right ear in puzzlement. A deep, guttural question sounded in his throat, but being the loyal companion he was, Angelo just ran after his mistress, immediately forgiving of any fault. The fireflies were forgotten as he sought to catch up with her, and so he never felt the single firefly, the brightest of the lot, follow after him and bury itself into his fur. There it lay, content and shining, like a phoenix whose plumage shone so bright, so effusive. 

So patient, so enduring. 

----- How was it? Originally entitled **chasing fireflies, **but I'm in a mono-"word-ic" mood, so there. I wanted to give it a happier ending too, but I think I prefer it this way now. Tell me what you think. : )


End file.
